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Pierre and Marie Curie. Photograph of physicists Pierre (1859-1906) and Marie (1867-1934) Curie, taken shortly after their marriage in Paris in 1895. Marie Curie began studying radioactivity in uranium after its discovery by Bequerel in 1896. She studied the content of uranium ores by measuring their radioactive emissions and showed that thorium was radioactive. Working together they detected two new elements, polonium (named after Marie's native country, Poland) and radium, both highly radioactive. The Curies were jointly awarded the 1903 Nobel Prize for physics for their work on radioactivity. Marie also won the 1911 chemistry prize for discovering these elements.